Dustin LindenSmith

father | musician | writer

George McGovern on George W. Bush

Americans over 45 are probably more likely to remember George McGovern, the Democratic presidential candidate and Vietnam war opponent who lost handily to the incumbent, Richard Nixon, two years before Nixon's near impeachment for Watergate. According to McGovern's Wikipedia entry, he now sits as global ambassador on hunger for the UN.

He was interviewed in a 2007 Rolling Stone issue (RS 1025/1026) to mark the 40th anniversary of The Summer of Love, 1967. I thought that his reflections on the presidency of G.W. Bush had some luscious bite to them.

You have a doctorate in history. Give me your unvarnished take, as a historian, on the legacy of George W. Bush.He's easily the worst president in American history. I don't think that's exaggeration at all. Nobody has put us into such a god-awful mess as this one. Nobody.

What do you think motivates him? Is he just incompetent, or is he an ideologue?Both. He's terribly incompetent in managing the ship of state. He doesn't know where to begin -- Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are calling the shots. I don't think he has a glimmer of reality on the big issues before the country: global warming, the escalating arms race, the war, the environment, education. He's a disaster.